Reignition
by Araceil
Summary: Rewrite. Slash. Something went wrong in the Second Task and Murphy pulled a fast one. Four years later a wizard without a memory escapes an insane god and meets the future Pirate King and his crew.
1. Chapter 1

**REIGNITION**

_Summary_

Slash.

Something went wrong in the Second Task of the Triwizard Tournament, Murphy pulled a fast one. Four years later, a wizard without a memory escapes an insane god and meets the future Pirate King and crew.

**Chapter One**

From Sea to Sky

* * *

Fate may be set in stone.

The destination as certain as the rising of the sun.

But that is just the end of a journey, the point where all paths converge and meet.

A place where only one of two things can happen – life... or death.

Everything in between is liquid – ever changing.

A spring with a thousand rivers.

But a pebble, carelessly tossed into the current, can alter the river's course. Can change... _everything_.

One small event, a hundred choices, a thousand results, a million outcomes, down in the darkness in the tangled weeds and haunting melodies of the Merfolk, a thousand futures flickered into life and death in an instant.

In one future, he would rescue only Ron and swim to the surface, he would receive the highest score for being the first one there but Gabrielle Delacour would drown. And Fleur would hold him personally responsible and hunt him down in the Third Task – it would mean her death at the hands of Barty Crouch jr, the fake Mad Eye Moody. In another, he would rescue Hermione and try to rescue Ron only to be warded off by the Merfolk, he would be stabbed by accident and return to the surface with Hermione, Krum would leave Ron and Gabrielle would still die, the Weasleys would turn against him for choosing a Muggleborn over their son – it would be subtle but he would notice it, it would also later prompt Madam Umbridge to call in the Ministry's Magical Creature's Department to slaughter the Merfolk as a danger to the students. It would prompt Harry to become the next Minister for Magic and rewrite over seven hundred laws, it would be a golden age of prosperity and magical advance under his leadership and the genius of his beloved wife, the girl he saved from the Lake. In a different one, he never found the Village and instead was abducted by the lake Spirit, a woman who called herself Fand, he would never return to the human realm again.

A thousand futures.

One pebble.

A moment too late, death a hair too close and a different spell uttered, mispronounced through the water as thin grasping fingers of Grindylow dug into his flesh – the River of Fate diverted again.

But this was an accident. A pebble thrown into a river.

* * *

'_Sky Island? Those exist?_'

'_I want to see it!_'

'_Holy shit!_'

'_-make – drown itself-_'

'_-Black for – of thirteen – with a single-_'

'_-my boy._'

Dull green eyes peeled open, the dim light from the golden sunset outside causing his pupils to ache as they contracted against the glow. Uncurling painfully from his position, he got to his feet, ignoring the familiar twangs of pain and discomfort from his poorly healed legs as he grasped the thin white bars of his prison cell window. Staring out across the white and green landscape with fathomless eyes.

Dreaming again...

Nothing but drips and drabs and splinters of sight and sound and scent.

Memories of life before were fragmented, bitty, sentences that hiccuped in the middle and left bits out, impressions of images, blue eyes, something that spun so quickly it made him queasy to look at, someone who probably looked as wild and unkempt as he did and, of course, the after when he found out that such a thing as flying islands existed and adamantly ignored all other words to the contrary and flung himself into the task of discovering them.

How foolish.

He wished he had never heard of Sorajima, it would have been better, happier, if he hadn't. He wouldn't be here, locked away in the dark, living off whatever the Maids could sneak him or the wildlife that crawled in or was brought to him by the ever helpful little white fox creature who'd taken a shine to him the last time he escaped.

The sun was beginning to rise and the light was hurting his eyes who had grown so accustomed to the dim-twilight of his cell that staring at the horizon brought tears to them. He closed them and turned away, releasing the bars and sitting down, leaning against the wall and stretching out with a deep sigh, he was so tired, he was always tired these days, Shio the fox hadn't been to visit him in a long time and the Maids had been kept busy by _His_ increasing demands. He hadn't eaten in over a month now, it was only the Cloud Water that drifted into the cell when the wind was blowing just right that meant he was even awake at the moment.

With no one to talk to in the tiny, white room, silence reigned supreme.

It was thick and smothering, long past the point of ringing but deafening now with its total absence of sound. The thick white walls of the tiny cell with its high-ceiling and three long, thin, slits that allowed shafts of pale golden light to stream in and flood the tiny room, illuminating the simple wooden door with its curiously white bolts, the long rectangular white pallet on the floor and the thin black figure sprawled across it, one foot, bare unlike the rest of the person, dipped into that sunlight as though greeting an old and much missed friend.

He knew how he looked, he was thin almost emaciated, swaddled in black, green and gold fabrics from head to foot. He just lay there, unnaturally still with a sturdy iron collar wrapped around his neck, over the scarf that covered his head and the veil that obscured his face. A thick chain ran from collar to wall, preventing the figure from escaping.

He was a prisoner and had been for two years now.

Dull green eyes shifted, brightened as the dull roar of silence was blotted out by the rhythmic padding slap of skin on stone, barefeet, someone coming to see him.

Soft mocking laughter stung his ears and green eyes glowed with anger, bright and painfully _green_ as they turned pointedly from the door and back to his foot. So pale and delicate seeming in the pale gold sunlight. He would not give _Him_ the satisfaction of believing his prisoner broken. He _refused._

The door scraped open and the barefeet padded into his line of sight, just as pale as he was and yet no where near so delicate or dirty, gold rings adorned even his toes and for a moment there was that familiar, and now missed, silence that stifled the room. And then the prisoner found his chin being lifted, a long golden staff pushing his jaw up.

Pale blue, almost white eyes and long dangling earlobes with heavy golden ornaments greeted him and he glared at the expression of smug pleasure on the man's face.

The person flinched in surprise as a broad, powerful hand smoothed down the side of his fabric hidden face, fear sent a thrill down his stomach as long fingers wrapped around his skull and pulled him close, cheek to cheek, with the pale man. He never touched him if he could help it, _never_.

"Soon."

* * *

This was... something new.

And he wasn't sure how to feel about it, on one hand, he was clean and had actually eaten for once, _He_ had ordered the Maids to draw him a bath and provide him with fresh clothing and a platter of fruits and sweet meats and cheeses. He had fallen upon the food like a pack of ravenous piranha but couldn't even choke down half the plate due to how much his stomach had shrunken in over the years of starvation and thimble sized food portions he had been able to scrounge.

His new clothing was the same style as the last, completely covering from ankle to head and fingertip with only a thin gap for his eyes, his eyes which had been lined in Kohl at the insistence of the girls, the difference now being that he wore white, green and blue with heavy gold ornaments. A pale coral green cheongsam(1) lined in deeper emerald green with blue flowers blossoming across the fabric, long baggy white pants that were tucked into a pair of delicate soft blue slipper-boots held on his feet with pale green ties. Under the cheongsam he wore a long bell-sleeved white top and over the elbow pale blue silk gloves, three golden bands around his biceps on each arm, a white headscarf and pale blue veil obscured his features, tiny teardrops of gold adding decoration to both the scarf and the veil, over the top of that was a thick, solid gold collar with a chain made out of cloud iron – currently in _His_ grasp.

So yes, he was in something of a conundrum.

One hand, clean clothes, clean self (sadly, all sharp objects had been kept out of reach so he had yet to shave off the impressive dead beaver growing on his chin) and well fed.

But on the other hand, he was still collared and chained and now being forced to sit at _His_ feet like some kind of pet as they awaited the Priests Ohm, Shura and Gedatsu – all three of whom would recognise him as they were the ones who had first brought him to this place and then ended up having to capture him time and time again until Shura broke his legs to keep him in one place. After that, it became common practice and he hadn't left the Shrine grounds since. He'd come close but now that he could no longer move fast enough to outrun whatever ability they used to hunt him down, he was easy pickings.

A hand landed on his head and he had to fight with himself not to flinch as he found his head being forced back and his fabric covered cheek stroked, he couldn't stop himself from trying to wrench his head away.

_He_ just laughed and let him pull away, still keeping hold of the fabric at the back of his head and by extension his hair underneath, "Soon, we shall return to the Holy Land of Vearth," _He_ spoke, sending chills down his spine, this bullshit again. _He_ was completely batshit insane if he thought the Moon was capable of supporting life, there was no atmosphere up there, it was a void, there was very little gravity on the moon as well. But then again... if anyone was capable of surviving up there, it would be _Him_ and possibly Kizaru and Aokiji – energy did not dissipate, it only changed, light would be unaffected by the vacuum of space, space was cold and comets were actually large chunks of rock and ice. Out of all Logia users, they would be the only ones capable of surviving to the best of his knowledge. But... there were probably other fruits out there capable of negating the consumer's need for oxygen and warmth, though he just wasn't aware of what they might be. Yami Yami no Mi was a possibility but that was more like a Blackhole, you needed to absorb things before you could negate them, so chances were... you would still need to breathe or stay warm.

He was getting distracted again.

Thankfully, he had been so lost in thought he had skipped the majority of the, by now, extremely familiar maniacal grandstanding of the Goro Goro no Mi user as he waxed poetical about how his will was absolute and he would take him away to the land of Fairy Vearth, the unending continent where his power would give birth to life and create a utopia. He had heard all of this before. He had contested it hotly for over a year before he had just given up trying to make this man see sense, it was like trying to defeat his Niisama with a spaghetti stick while the man was using that overgrown pigsticker of his. It didn't matter how many times he told the Devil Fruit user that he wasn't a God, that he couldn't summon water in a place that didn't HAVE any, he couldn't survive in a heatless and airless vacuum, he didn't _want_ to go to the damn moon, he was ignored.

He twitched and turned to face the Devil Fruit user, "What did you say?" he asked sharply, narrowing his eyes on the pale man.

Pale blue eyes regarded him briefly before he laughed, "I forgot, this isn't your realm, your divinity doesn't apply up here! Ya-hahahaha! Though you may favour them, the Blue Sea Dwellers will receive no assistance tomorrow, they must prove themselves worthy like everyone else. Worthy of joining us in Fairy Vearth!"

Blue Sea Dwellers! People from below!

Hope swelled almost painfully in his chest, was his brother one of them? He had been so certain that the stupid old man would have given up on him, decided he had died in his idiotic attempt to get to Sky Island and moved on with life and forgotten all about him. After all... it wasn't like they were related by blood.

"Kami-sama," prompted one of the Enforcers, Yama, the commander, "The Priests have arrived."

"Open the door," _He_ said carelessly, releasing his grip on the back of the other male's head.

The heavy double wooden doors creaked open and all three Priests tumbled through fighting like cats and dogs, sword and lance lashing out while Gedatsu's purple clad arms and legs flickered in and out of view looking to do as much damage as the two more conventional sky weapons. Watching them with tired green eyes, he could remember a time when he was capable of holding his own against all three of them for a short period of time, that time was long past and his body was too destroyed to have a hope of holding out against even one of them for a few moments, let alone all three.

"Not again," Yama muttered, "What are you doing?" he asked flatly, he knew exactly what they were doing but he wanted to know what set them off this time, _why_ they were fighting in Kami-sama's presence. Both of them. "Hopeless, just hopeless," he growled under his breath, double chins wobbling sickeningly.

"SHUT UP!" Shura snarled, "With these two always in my way I can never unleash my full potential!" he barked, glaring at the obese Enforcer. Ohm sneered, bracing his cloud sword against his shoulder, obviously he didn't agree. "If I was allowed to guard this island by myself, I could work so much better!"

"You talk pretty big," Ohm growled, "I should teach you a lesson about the limits of your true power."

He tuned out their boasting, by now having realised that _He_ was no where to be found.

"Where God resides?" Shura scoffed, "So where is he? Where is our illustrious God of Lightning and Death? All I can see is his Pet of Life and Water." It was taking a lot of will power not to give him one of his old friend's scathing lectures, he didn't want his jaw broken along with his legs.

"CHANCE!"

It happened in a split second.

The Priests went flying with grunts of alarm and pain as yellow lightning slashed out at them, _His_ golden staff whipping out and throwing them away like so many ragdolls before he was flipping himself back to his former seat, laughing all the way as his Priests tumbled gracelessly across the Shrine grounds.

He flung himself into his seat and sprawled across it lazily, "I am God," he announced, and again, the green eyed male had to fight not to roll his eyes – he wasn't as broken as the Devil Fruit User would have liked, close to it, incredibly close to it, but not yet. _He_ tugged on the chain, forcing him to his feet where his legs trembled painfully until he was roughly pulled into the man's lap.

What the hell was all this? He never touched him he could get away with it, his ability nullified Devil Fruit powers, true it didn't work without skin on skin contact – hence the full body coverings – but _He_ was a paranoid bastard and a coward to boot. He generally avoided any and all contact between the two of them, too worried that even proximity would cull his power and leave him vulnerable to a fatal attack. As it nearly had more than once before – hence the banning of all pointy and stabbity objects around the green eyed male. _He_ must have figured out a way of reviving himself after death – like he had – or had just decided that with his legs broken in multiple places and improperly healed, starved half to death and incapable of using his power without skin to skin contact he would be safe to do as he pleased.

He sincerely hoped his brother was amidst the Blue Sea Dwellers, it would be amusing to see _His_ reaction to getting cut into pasta slices faster than he could escape Niisama's Haki.

"I'm right here, we both are, can't you see?" he asked mockingly as he physically arranged the smaller male into a comfortable position – for himself, not for the other man. "You still need to train! You are still not strong enough!" the faux God declared coldly as he began to stroke the smaller male's head as if he were a favoured pet. He tensed horribly, unused to contact after so many years without a single soul touching him kindly, he kept expecting the punch or the kick or the sickening crack of a broken bone. "You don't want to be failures like Satori, do you?" _He_ purred lazily, sounding like an overly smug feline.

Ohm was silent, trying to catch his breath from the blow to his sternum earlier.

"What did you say?" Gedatsu snapped angrily, pushing himself into a crouching position.

"Tch, what a bad joke," Shura complained as he pulled his hat off, "Did you call us here just to tell us trash like that?" he demanded.

"Yehahahaha, I was bored, come, sit," he declared with a laugh waving them over and sitting up properly, still keeping a tight hold of the green eyed male who had, despite his wariness and fear, begun to relax. "I don't think you're taking the Blue Sea Dwellers seriously enough. Did you know their real goal was the Gold?"

His heart sank. All the painfully bright hope from earlier withered and died, his brother cared nothing for gold. It wasn't him. It looked like he wasn't getting out of this. He slumped, leaning against the pale man, suddenly feeling so very tired and fed up with fighting.

"Gold? How do they know about the gold?" one of the Priests squawked, he didn't pay attention to whom, too busy wallowing.

"Well, this island came from the Blue Sea so its not surprising that people from the Blue Sea would know of it," _He_ explained as if to a mentally deficient child. "They will undoubtedly start taking action tomorrow..." the pale man said, digging his fingers into the smaller male's scalp, "The same goes for Shandia, who will attack again. Thus, for tomorrow, all of God's Land will be opened to you all. It doesn't matter where or what trials you set up, cancel all the rules, do whatever you want!"

"Why the sudden change?" Gedatsu asked warily.

_He_ took a chomp out of the apple one of the girl's gave him, hand moving away from the smaller male's cloth covered hair to rub at his neck, lulling the tired male closer and closer to sleep, "Because, it is almost completed. '_Maxime_' that is... Hurry and tie up all the loose ends here..." _He_ smiled darkly, the smaller male now deeply asleep leaning back against him, good, he would need his strength for when they reached Vearth, he would have a lot of land to make things grow on.

"Let's go to the Dream World!."

* * *

He woke up in agony.

After so many years on the hard prison mattress the softness of the couch and _His_ body made his muscles scream in pain at the uncomfortable position he had been forced into while he had been sleeping but also due to the unaccustomed surfaces. On top of his awful muscle aches, his current position made it impossible to feign sleep to the psychopath he was half sprawled upon.

Thankfully he didn't seem overly concerned about his current state of awareness, he was too busy having fun with the other people there. Asking them how many they thought would survive, survive what he didn't know but he didn't like the sound of it.

"What about you, my Treasure? How many do you think will survive my little Game? The seven Blue Sea Dwellers, the twenty Shandians, the three Priests, the former God Gan Fall, the forty Enforcers and myself, the current Kami of this blasphemous unnatural place, Enel... Tell me Kami of the Blue Sea, who do you think will be left standing at the end?" he purred, nuzzling the side of the green eyed male's head, holding him tightly to prevent him from wriggling free.

He shivered and remained motionless, "Seven humans, two animals," he decided quietly.

Enel laughed and hugged him tight enough to make his ribs flex extremely uncomfortably, he couldn't have stopped himself from making the soft sound of discomfort in the back of his throat even if he wanted to, it did get the wanna-be Kami to relax his hold in an extremely rare show of consideration.

"Isn't that cute? Eight insects to survive?" he crowed, "But you're wrong, in three hours, out of the eighty-one fighters on the island... only five will be left standing," he declared, tilting the green eyed male's head up by his jaw. "And of those five, only the willing and the worthy will follow us to the Holy Land of Fairy Vearth." Enel pressed his mouth against the smaller male's fabric covered lips, holding him motionless as he attempted to jerk away. This was just an entirely different level of weird and uncomfortable for him, Enel had treated him as if he had a new and undiscovered communicable disease for the past two years, too afraid of going near him, touching him, or even breathing near him after the first incident where he had nullified his Logia powers and actually managed to stab him with a near-by fork. In fact, only the Priests and the Maids had ever touched him until now, the Priests to capture or harm him, the Maids to tend to his injuries when said Priests got out of hand or he was too weak to feed himself after a prolonged period of starvation. Even then, no one had been inappropriate with him. No bad-touch as his old friend liked to call it around the children.

Enel's complete one-eighty was scaring him now.

He pulled away and hummed thoughtfully, "I should probably stash you away somewhere safe," he mused, running a finger across the golden collar around his neck, "Can't have the God of Life meet his end while out of his area of divinity. You've been up here so long you have become weaker, lesser, than you once were. I choked your power, stifled it and trapped it where, just like a flower, it wilted in the darkness." He chuckled unpleasantly as his hand moved from the collar and wrapped around the green eyed male's throat and began to squeeze, "I will return you to your former glory but I trust you understand what will happen if you disobey me," he hissed, his pale blue – almost colourless eyes glinting madly as the smaller male rasped and choked, trying to pry his fingers away from the column of his throat.

He threw the smaller male to the floor, watching him gasp for air and cough, rubbing at his no doubt bruised neck as he lay on the floor. Enel smirked cruelly and kicked the prone figure harshly in the back, making him fly forward and tumble down the few steps to the courtyard below with a shout of pain.

Lying on the firm white fluff of the Island Cloud beneath him, he could only choke in the thin oxygen and brood over how he ended up in this position. Him. The memoryless stray kitten that the school teacher Setsuna from Sweet Island took in, the 88,000,000 Bounty Head known as Leviathan's Child, Namikaze Kai.

He really wished he had never heard of Sky Island.

* * *

(1) Cheongsam: A chinese style dress, this style has both slits up the thighs, a Qipao has only the single slit and often has short sleeves while a Cheongsam can have either no sleeves or long sleeves.

**What do you guys think of the first chapter of Reignition? **

**I was a little leery of Enel and Kai's interaction because I thought it would be rather hinky, but considering how Enel is quite literally BATFUCK insane, I think the details actually work out when given thought. **

_Returning readers_** – thank you so much for coming back and reading the rewrite, its touching, really it is. Those of you who follow my Facebook will probably be aware of the changes I decided to make. Those of you who aren't, here's a brief run down. **

**Kai's past relationship with Shanks has been cut out, he knows of Red Hair only through his association with Mihawk and general knowledge of the Yonkou. His relationship with Mihawk is a little different as well, it isn't born through a forced association but rather a friendship that gradually evolved, ergo they're a lot closer than they are in Ignition. Kai's weapon abilities have been down played to only a handful of masteries, still can't use swords though XD. I've given him more variation on the Rokushiki to fit his current physical abilities. And, by the will of the readers, I've been given full permission to commence with the Canon-Rape, which was one of the things I was so worried about doing earlier. Now, fuck it. I'll do whatever I like 8DDD I've also cut down on the majority of his knowledge regarding the Grand Line – he's been stuck on Sky Island for two years, leaving only two in which to actually travel, six months of which was spent where he washed up, leaving a year and a half, the majority of which was spent with Mihawk, which you can just tell was interesting to say the least.**

_New readers_** – Welcome to the rewrite of my One Piece/Harry Potter story, the previous Story is still on my profile and will continue to be under the title of Ignition. I hope you enjoy it and if you have any scene suggestions I would be happy to hear them out, just drop me a review and I'll answer any questions and read any ideas you have. If you'd like information on updates and chapter progress, just go to my profile and hit the link for my Facebook, I'll accept anyone. XD**

**Drop me a line and tell me how you like or dislike the new story.**

Araceil

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**PS: THOSE OF YOU INTERESTED, I POSTED THE LAST HANDFUL OF CHAPTERS I HAD HIDING ON MY HARDDRIVE FOR IGNITION!**

I do not own One Piece or Harry Potter or any associated things. I do own the story but I make no monetary prophet from it, this is purely for personal amusement.


	2. Chapter 2

**REIGNITION**

**Some points came up in reviews earlier, figured they needed attending to first.**

* * *

**KIKI-chan: **No where does it say Kai got raped.

In fact, its quite firmly stated that NOTHING inappropriate happened, there was NO badtouch. Enel was terrified of touching him until recently just in case Kai killed him, the Priests were more into breaking his legs and the Maids were scared of him as well – thinking he was similar to Enel. Ergo, no rape. Try actually reading the story properly instead of skimming and making assumptions.

If you're referring to **canon!rape**, that just means that I won't be paying much attention to the original events of the Manga/Anime, I will be using it mostly as a guideline. Before I followed it religiously but it was rather boring, this time, my wonderful readers are allowing me to go apeshit and do what I want.

* * *

**Lord Giovanni:** Its an equal relationship.

I know quite a few gay people, yes, one or two prefer receiving and a few prefer giving, however, I have never encountered a relationship that is strictly '_I put my dick in you and you WILL like it because that's never going to change_'. If I did, I would be calling some people for advice on whether I should report this as abuse to the police. There will be no lemons because I am profoundly uncomfortable writing something so intimate and being a woman, apart from what my friends have told me, I wouldn't know how it really is. From what I know, you wouldn't be sore unless you were unduly rough or didn't prepare well enough.

* * *

**Chapter Two**

From Sky to Sea

* * *

The Maxime looked like a giant boat, an _arc_.

He had never seen anything like it, and yet, while staggering through the long corridors and hauling himself up the stairs, trailing after Enel who marched ahead of him, chain in hand, tapping his foot impatiently whenever he couldn't keep up, the metal around him seemed so familiar. It didn't feel like home, not the same way as Niisama's castle did, but it felt familiar, like spotting the face of an exceptionally old friend in a crowd and being unable to remember just who they were. Eventually, the Lightning user lost patience with him and picked him up like a sack of potatoes, slinging him over one shoulder and marching off to where ever it was they were going, the former Pirate couldn't find himself to be overly annoyed with the treatment. His legs were really hurting.

When they finally reached the so called '_bridge_' of the monolithic structure, Kai didn't think he had ever seen so grateful to sit down, his legs throbbed with pain and his head was spinning, a sharp unpleasant stabbing pain building in the space just behind the ridge of his eyebrows. Enel sneered unpleasantly at him as he affixed the end of his chain to a small metal clasp attached to the wooden floorboards, securing him to the structure. It took a struggle of will not to study the clasp while Enel was watching him, even weakened as he was, Kai could probably break the floorboards as opposed to the actual chains. The downside was the fact that he wasn't even sure if his mangled legs would even be able to support his weight enough for an escape at this juncture. He just didn't have the durability he used to have.

He hadn't felt this weak since he had first washed ashore Sweet Island, sans memories from before.

He watched as Enel flashed away, making all the hairs on his arms stand straight and an odd pins and needles sensation shiver through his beard and scalp – he hated it when he did that. No doubt he was going to take part in his little survival game, creepy bastard. He tried not to think about the people who were going to die just to feed that megalomaniac's bloodlust.

He sighed and rubbed his painful legs, giving the chain a long, considering look, he could summon up brief spurts of strength, his body hadn't completely destroyed itself over the long years, but it was a long shot. If he broke the boards and made his escape now... chances were he might actually manage to reach the edge of Upper Yard before he was caught up to. Escape was impossible, no matter how hard he tried. Enel and the Priests gloated enough about how his '_Voice_' was the easiest to find, how his presence actually sang instead of spoke and how it sang but they didn't understand the words. Enel decided they were some kind of Divine language from the Blue Seas, which was complete bullcrap but considering how they had no idea about what was happening on the Blue Sea it was a pretty fair conclusion to come to, it kind of worked. Though Kai was quite certain there was absolutely _nothing_ Divine about him.

Divine beings don't lose their memories and wake up on beaches weaker than most ten year olds.

With nothing to do, Kai gave into his favourite past time, the only thing that had kept him sane the past two years. He sank into memories, reminiscence and imagined what the people he used to know were doing now...

It had been four years ago, roughly by his estimation, since he had lost his memories and been found, washed ashore – or more accurately floating in a rockpool – by Madam Setsuna's Sunday School Class. They had been studying Marine Biology and one of the girls, Kalara, had wandered off in search of Hermit Crabs and star-fish, what she found was what she, and almost everyone else, thought was a corpse. It was only after they pulled him from the water that they realised he was still alive and started immediate emergency first aid. It was odd to know that an eight-year-old had stolen your first kiss, via CPR, while you weren't even aware of it.

The people of Sweet Island, a tiny little place bordering the Calm Belt, were very peaceful and laid back, adopting a unique philosophy of '_Do unto others as you would do unto yourself_', along with several other sayings that made the place such a peaceful and tolerant location. They rarely suffered Pirates as they were so close to the Calm Belts and had a Coral reef not too far away, making accessibility more of a pain for any large Pirate Ships thus cutting down the likelihood of attack. Sweet Island wasn't famous for anything and in all honesty it had nothing of value, any Pirates who did make their way there really had no reason to attack – though it didn't always stop them.

Kai had been bed-ridden for two weeks, battered, bruised, suffering pneumonia, unable to speak in any understandable language, unable to remember anything – not even his name. The children came to visit him every day along with their teacher. It had been decided that, since it was her class that found him, he would become the responsibility of Madam Setsuna, the school teacher and after having had her company whenever the children visited he couldn't see this as a bad thing, she was a very kind woman. He stayed with her for six months, learning the language, how to speak and read and write, she taught him geography, history, classical literature, music, even some science. He could still remember his numbers, addition and subtraction and the like, he was actually even better at it than her, capable of long divisions and multiplications that made her head spin, not to mention the equations he called algebra. In return for the teaching, for room and board, for even naming him, the young man cooked and cleaned for the Teacher, he organised her books and papers, worked in the garden with the flowers and her little vegetable patch, did the laundry and even repaired the roof of both her house and the school.

After that... he left.

It was quite firmly established that he would be leaving as soon as he was both healthy enough and capable enough of surviving out there without aid. All he had to do next was work to pay for the supplies and the small sailboat they gave him, which was perfectly reasonable as far as he was concerned and proceeded to work his butt off for a week doing all manner of jobs around the village until the Mayor had decided he had worked enough for both supplies, ship, Log Pose and even a weapon. Given his speed, it was decided to give him a simple pair of knives and some oil and a cloth to care for them before giving the young man a brief farewell party and seeing him away at dawn the next morning.

He hadn't even gone further than five miles out before a Sea King tried to take a chunk out of him. And then the oddest thing happened. It spoke to him. _She_ spoke to him. She said that he was too small to be much of a meal but for her Hatchlings he was just right.

Alarmed, Kai did the only reasonable thing he could think of, he tried to talk her out of it.

Evidentially, no one had bothered to speak to a Sea King before because she had been properly alarmed that he even could speak to her, which he thought was more than a little odd. If she was talking about eating people then he was fairly certain they would start screaming and pleading with her to stop, when he pointed this out she found it quite amusing and started to laugh. It was rather odd to watch, he recalled, it nearly capsized his boat too. Either way, it took him off the menu, Li'crna wasn't willing to feed anyone who told a good joke to her little ones, especially if they were intelligent to speak. She let him go on his way before returning to her Hatchlings, still laughing.

The next Island was very small, a lovely fresh water stream teaming with fish, he refilled his water barrel just to be careful, caught more than a few fish and decided to try his best at smoking them to make them last longer. He stayed on that little island for quite a while as a storm rolled in and made the ocean far too violent for him to risk trying to sail until it was well and truly over. He dragged his little ship ashore, above the high tide mark, and slept curled up in the nook between the barrel and the stern, a water proof oil-skin and thick woollen blanket wrapped around him to fend off the elements.

It would take him two more islands and a brief and unpleasant encounter with a group of Pirate Slavers before he encountered the first person he could legitimately call a friend, and eventually, his older brother. By this point he would have become harder, sharper, more ruthless, the knives he received from Sweet Village would have tasted human blood, human death. And Kai would find himself quite good at fighting, familiar with it, like a dance he learned a long time ago and still remembered half the steps, remembered enough to improvise the rest.

It was ugly and unrefined and very, very clumsy, but it kept him alive which was all he could ask for. He had no intentions of becoming a Pirate or some kind of Warrior of the Sea, or a Marine, he just wanted to find out who he was, where he came from and possibly go back there.

Either someone upstairs really liked him, or he was due a major return on his Karmic Debt but the next island he reached was quite a busy port town by the name of Gaggling Village on the island of Brice, all the doors and wooden fixtures were a bright custard yellow thanks to the so called famous Kin-Leaf trees, a tree whose wood was stained bright yellow and leaves were a bright shiny gold from leeching the nutrients from the bright orange earth. It was a sickeningly cheerfully coloured place in his opinion but he managed to get the supplies he needed for the next leg of his journey, plus some extras to patch up the little sail-boat should he ever need them.

He had been returning to the docks when he caught sight of a few vagrants attempting to steal a rather... interesting sail-boat just down the board-walk from his. It looked like something out of a Stam Broker Novel – specifically Alucard if he was perfectly honest (1).

Setsuna had practically _pounded_ a love of classical literature into his skull and he had discovered, when she wasn't actually trying to cram them down his throat, that he actually enjoyed them. They must have been something he had read from before because the stories seemed so familiar even if the names seemed strangely foreign (if _vaguely_ familiar).

So, with this in mind, (and really, anyone who designed their ship after Alucard was definitely having a laugh and there was no way Kai was going to let it get stolen by some yobs who wouldn't appreciate the artistry of it) he stepped in and forcibly showed the small group elsewhere – specifically into the sea if they were so desperate to leave the island.

That was when he met the owner of the Alucard ship.

And if he wasn't almost the spitting image of what Kai pictured in his head when thinking of the Vampiric Overlord of Darkness (if you added a proper shirt and longer hair, and changed the eyes to piercing blue instead of piercing gold), Kai would have laughed if he hadn't been busy drooling over the gorgeous sword slung across the man's back. He seemed somewhat taken aback when, instead of reacting like almost _everyone_ else did upon the first sight of him, Kai asked him if he had read Alucard while grinning and jerking a thumb at the coffin shaped ship.

Indeed, Jiraquille Mihawk was quite stunned that, even after introducing himself, there wasn't even the slightest flicker of recognition in the younger male's face.

That more than anything was probably what prompted the Shichibukai to offer him a drink in thanks for preventing the theft of his boat. Fame, or rather infamy, had to get very boring after a while, especially when you couldn't even sit down in an obnoxiously bright painted café and have a good long chat over tea and muffins with someone about literature or the current world order – though Mihawk actually ended up having to explain most of the world order to Kai once he found out about the amnesia. He seemed to find it amusing as well, the bastard. He also _teased_ Kai, of all things, about his clumsy combat style. To which the young man turned around and teased him about his natty little beard, claiming it looked like a poodle's armpit. Mihawk hadn't been impressed and the two bickered like teenagers the whole way back to the dock, exchanging childish insults and not-so-witty come backs.

Mihawk had then done something extremely uncharacteristic – though Kai wouldn't know that until quite a long time later. He offered the younger man a ride to the next island, but not quite worded in such a fashion. Looking back, Kai knew that the man had been interested in him, that he had seen some glimmer of talent during his clumsy and unrefined brawl with those yahoos, that he had actually enjoyed his company briefly, which wasn't something the stoic man was known to do.

At the time, the teenager had grinned and thanked him for the offer but refused, he didn't want to put him at an inconvenience and besides, surely he was on his way to the New World? He wasn't ready for something of that level just yet, so he would go looking around here first for any clues or hints of his past, he was too young to be a Marine so that left Pirate or civilian.

And they'd parted ways.

Only to meet up again by accident three weeks later in the middle of a riot between two Pirate crews and a Marine ship. By this point, Kai had been in enough fights to have improved himself rather drastically, plus, doing nothing day in and day out on his little ship had moved him to training just to take up the time between when he was steering the ship, eating or sleeping.

Somehow Kai had gotten dragged in when a pair of Pirates who had fallen overboard crawled into his ship and attempted to kill him and steal it. He unceremoniously kicked their asses and tossed them overboard only to have the rest of their crew take exception to his actions and start shooting at him, the Marines turned around and started shouting orders at each other to protect him and, believing he was with them, the _other_ Pirate crew started to attack him as well! It turned into a real mess.

Then Mihawk showed up right beside him and glared, '_This is exactly the reason why I told you to come with me, Gaki_' he had snapped, loudly enough for everyone to hear. A split second later they were all throwing a collective fit over how Kai knew the Greatest Swordsman in the World. Something he had neglected to tell the younger male when they had first met, then somehow in their collective hysteria, it went from friends, to lovers, to brothers, all within the two minutes Mihawk and Kai spent arguing and not paying attention to anyone else.

The swordsman then gave up on changing Kai's mind, he was even more stubborn than Shanks when he put himself to the task, and dealt with the Pirate ships and ushered the Marines off with a sharp glare they didn't want to argue with. Ten minutes later, Kai's ship was tied to Mihawk's and the younger of the two nursing a bump on the head as the Shichibukai directed them to his home island, he had decided to take the younger male under his wing and there was nothing Kai could say to stop him. He wasn't about to let good talent go to waste under his nose.

The problem with that was – Kai had absolutely no talent with a sword.

Short blades, sure, knives, excellent, hammers, hmm okay, oversized axes, pretty damn good, fans, Mihawk had yet to see someone better, but when it came to swords, the boy just couldn't wrap his mind around them or wield them with the same ability he could anything else. It would take him years of intensive constant study before he was in any way an acceptable swordsman.

Mihawk despaired.

Until he caught Kai training himself in the dead of night against a gang of Humandrill with surprising success. Evidentially, Super-human speed wasn't something that just _anyone_ had. Even more amusing, the younger male hadn't even been aware that he was doing anything special.

* * *

"This is the Arc, Maxime! The ship that will take us to Endless Earth!"

Kai jerked out of his memories at the sound of Enel's voice echoing around the rock cavern. The survival game must be over then, and someone must have been frightened or desperate enough to have accepted his offer of suicide. Or they just weren't aware that it would be suicide.

A thought suddenly occurred to him.

Gold wasn't a very good conductor of electricity, too much energy was lost into heat conversion. And Gold had a low liquidation temperature, higher than boiling water, but still, Gold was a soft metal. With the amount of energy Enel would have to pump into it to get the ship to fly... the Gold would start to melt. Then there was the energy needed to breach the atmosphere, then control their trajectory to the moon and then land safely so as not to destroy the ship and everyone on it...

There was no way the gold would be able to maintain that kind of output, copper would have been the best kind of metal for this task but... Skypiea didn't have anything BUT Gold in terms of metal unless it was things such as swords, cannons and rivets from ships and anchors. But then again, even the iron and steel from them would be far more superior to carry a charge than Gold so why was... Ah. The teenager sighed heavily beneath his veil, distantly aware of Enel and someone else approaching, pride. Gold was considered to be an extremely valuable metal down in the Blue Sea, surely, with all the Pirates that found their way up into Skypiea, that knowledge must have reached Enel at one point in time. And being as egocentric as the man was, he decided Gold was the only metal he would tolerate for his vessel to the Eternal Vearth.

He blinked in surprise as Enel pulled him to his feet and then sat down, gently cradling the younger male in his lap, not noticing or just not caring that Kai was twisted into an extremely uncomfortable position against him. It was then that Kai got a look at the survivor.

He blinked in shock, it was a girl, an extremely familiar girl with fiery orange gold hair and doe-like russet brown eyes, her skin was clear and she looked a little older than him, dressed in a blue camo-styled bikini top, brown cargoes with her hair in bunches. She looked to be a Navigator by the look of the Log Pose around her wrist and the lack of muscle tone that would indicate an accomplished fighter, still, she moved like she had an idea about what she was doing and she was dragging a strange kind of little boat behind her. It looked rather a little like a Jet-Ski only less... technological.

All at once he decided that she was a Pirate, that she was intending on escaping at the first opportunity, she was from the Blue Sea and that she was so damn familiar to him that she either looked like someone he knew from before, or she was someone he knew from before!

Enel frowned, leaning over Kai and making the smaller male wince as he was practically crushed into his own ankles and elbows, "Something has cause quite the racket in Angel Beach..." he mused, rubbing the top of the extremely uncomfortable male's head.

The girl twitched slightly, "Is it because of us?" she squawked in alarm.

Enel snorted and sat back, allowing Kai to breathe, "No, it's probably just a small problem. Yahahaha..."

"Um, does that Mantra ability require a known target to work properly?" the Blue Sea girl asked, evidentially trying to fill the uncomfortable silence that was looming over them. She was terrified of Enel, with good reason, even Kai was terrified of the man and he knew he wasn't allowed to be killed.

Enel nodded, "Yes," he smirked then, "but I am different. Using Mantra with my electrical abilities, I can create sonic waves like a radar. I can detect and pass judgement on anything in this island... and if I want, the entire country." No wonder Kai could never actually escape him. It would take throwing himself through the Clouds and plummeting down into the Blue Sea to find his freedom – inevitably in death at that.

"So... um," the girl stumbled over her words, a cold sweat trickling down her temple.

The shark-like smirk on Enel's face was enough to unsettle even the most hardened of Pirates, "This is the kind of ability most fitted for a God like me. Yahahahaha! This God of the Blue Sea has been so far removed from your people for so long, he has lost almost all of his power! Yet he still sings, sings the sacred songs that only the chosen with Mantra can hear." The insane man smiled, almost as though listening to a lullaby as he hugged the smaller male and rocked him like a child. Kai really wasn't sure what to think about this, the man's mood swings were quite frankly as mercurial as the weather systems in the Grand Line, you could never be certain when he was going to lose it, just like you could never be certain when a cyclone was going to whip itself up.

"The Final Scene of Skypiea will be the Banquet of the Dancing Angels. Won't you like to see their faces before they die? Yahahahaha!" The girl looked like she was on the verge of tears, her hands were shaking and she was pale, she was thinking hard and biting on her lower lip, obviously using the pain to prevent herself from saying something that would get her killed.

Smart girl.

Suddenly, Enel stopped, casting his watery blue-white eyes to the side, a frown creasing his features.

"Wa...? Is something wrong?" the girl asked, her voice shaking slightly with the sudden mood switch, she could see the way the small white clad figure in the veil had suddenly gone motionless, his curiously green, green eyes flicking from Enel to the sides as if searching for escape. Nami was getting the feeling that the man wasn't here willingly, as if the collar and chain hadn't yet clued her in.

"No..." Enel grunted. "It's nothing," he affirmed, casually shoving the thin figure to the ground and getting to his feet, carelessly trampling him as he walked past. "Those five survivors are still down," he mused out loud, not even noticing as the girl rushed to the smaller figure he threw aside, helping him sit up and wincing at how impossibly thin his arms and body were under the many folds of voluminous clothing he wore. "I am not very pleased right now. How can there be a mistake in my prediction?" There was a moment of silence while Enel scowled at the entrance, his mind flicking back to the other day, when he had the God of the Blue Sea predict how many survivors of his little game there would be.

His eyes narrowed as he spotted the ragged looking boy, the bird-horse thing and the little girl. Two animals, seven humans.

"You must be Luffy," he decided, glaring at the boy, so this was the Captain of the Blue Sea Pirate Crew... he didn't look like much.

The girl twitched and ran to the railings, "Luffy!" she exclaimed, relief colouring her voice and for a moment, Kai felt jealous that someone had come for her before shaking it off, his brother didn't even know if he had survived or died in his efforts to ride the Knock Up Stream to Sky Island.

"What did you do to my friends?" the unfamiliar voice growled distantly.

Enel sneered. "Isn't this that other piece of trash?" he demanded eyeing the boy as he would something found on the bottom of his foot. "Show some respect, Punk. I am God." Kai pushed himself to his feet, trembling, and stumbled forward, as far as the chain would allow, to get a better look at the boy who would challenge Enel. He couldn't get far enough to peer over the railing though – it was too high and, damn it all, the girl was taller than him as well!

"Yeah right! You don't look like God!" the boy retorted and Kai couldn't help but smile at his guts. That was almost the exact same thing Kai had said upon meeting the man. There was just a lot more cursing.

"Luffy! Be careful!" the girl shouted down to him.

There was a beat of silence as Enel looked at her chillingly, the girl squeaked in alarm as she realised what she had just done and clamped her hands over her mouth. A moment later, Enel laughed, "I hear the cheers of the Angels. The citizens seem to know about the fate of Skypiea, yahaha. I wonder where they are running to..." he mused thoughtfully, clearly taking sadistic pleasure in the pain and fear of his people.

"I SAID, YOU DON'T LOOK LIKE GOD – STUPID!" Luffy bellowed, damn, he had a pair of lungs on him!

Enel smirked, "I will show you soon enough," he stated and Kai's blood ran cold.

He couldn't get any closer but... he lashed out with a leg and kicked the girl's feet out from under her, she tumbled to the ground with a squawk and the Pirate quickly grabbed her wrist, pulling her to his side, "You don't want to get caught up in this," he rasped as she struggled, "Stay still, you'll get hurt if you get involved!" he hissed.

Nami stared at him briefly, "You're not... on his side are you?" she whispered.

"I see... so you aren't such a simple mortal after all... however..." Enel spoke, not paying them a lick of attention.

Kai gave the girl a flat look, "What was your first clue?" he asked.

"**GOD'S JUDGEMENT!**"

"Luffy!" Nami screamed, wrenching herself out of Kai's grasp as the smaller male quickly threw an arm over his face to shield his eyes.

Whatever anyone had been expecting...

It wasn't Luffy to be stood there, completely unharmed, a funny look on his face as he eyed the hole in the rock face behind him. Even Enel seemed a little surprised, Kai was perhaps the only one who was staring at Luffy in realisation and growing glee.

"You're better than I thought... **60 Million Volts... Thunder Dragon!**" Luffy was still stood there, still unharmed. Enel lunged forward and slapped his palm against the boy's throat, going in for the kill, "**100 Million Volts, SHOCK RELEASE!**"

Rubber. The boy was the _only_ person in the whole of the Blue Sea to possess that Devil Fruit and the only one completely... one hundred percent... _immune_ to Enel's Lightning Powers... The Gomu Gomu no Mi... He was... A _Rubber Man!_

"STOP IT! YOU'RE ANNOYING!" the boy roared, roughly backhanding the Goro Goro no Mi user away like an errant child.

Kai couldn't help but laugh at the look on Enel's face when he realised that all of his electrical powers were USELESS on the boy. It was a _beautiful_ expression, three parts _What The Fuck_, one part _Oh Holy Shit_ and two parts _EHHHHH_. Pretty soon now they were really going to go at it, Kai caught hold of Nami's arm and pulled her away from where the two men were going to start fighting, Luffy's eyes caught the movement and a split second later, a fist was hurtling toward him accompanied by a yell of "_WHERE ARE YOU TAKING NAMI?_"

Impact. And darkness.

* * *

"_Redirecting the attack with an electric current._" Awareness was slowly coming back in, he knew he had been out for a while, the Luffy-kid hit pretty hard... judging by the pain in his back he'd bounced off the wall behind him before passing out. Ugh, at least his jaw wasn't broken, though it was going to bruise beautifully. "_That is a feat done using great knowledge over the weather!_" That was... Enel's voice.

Kai's eyes cracked open, the world swimming around him as he stared at his surroundings, the girl, on her own, Luffy nowhere in sight, Enel looking bruised and bloody but triumphant... and about to kill the Blue Sea girl that was so familiar.

His blood turned to ice.

* * *

Nami couldn't stop shaking, her hands were sweaty on the cool blue rods of the Clima Tact, she knew she was facing her death but... she couldn't regret anything. '_This isn't going well,_' she thought staring at the leering Devil Fruit user.

"Yahahaha, unfortunately, that trick won't work, if I throw a big one like this you can't redirect its path! I'm a busy man so... Farewell." Enel grinned like the devil and unleashed the violent burst of electricity.

"Eat this! CERTAIN DEATH **FIRE STAR!**" There was a beat of silence, Enel had turned away from her in a split second to block the exploding pellet that came from behind, Usopp, stood in the door way, hid behind his arms. "S-Sorry?" he squeaked.

"I see you have found your way to the deck..." Enel noted, his voice coloured with displeasure as he stared at the... ugly thing in front of him.

Usopp looked around in mild panic, "Where's Sanji?" he near enough whimpered.

"S-sanji-kun's coming too?" Nami exclaimed, staring at her crewmate, she had been so certain both he and Sanji had been too seriously injured to move, let alone mount a rescue mission for her. Something warm tingled in her chest.

"You mean he isn't here yet?" Usopp wailed, on the verge of tears. He grit his teeth and glared at Enel, "In that case..." He took a deep breath...

And retreated, closing the door behind him.

"GET BACK HERE!" Nami roared furiously. How _dare_ he abandon her! Forget warm feelings she was going to throttle him when she got her hands on him!

"LET'S GET IT ON, GOD!" the curly haired Pirate exclaimed, bursting back out through the door only to dive forward and narrowly avoid a burst of lightning. He tumbled rolling forward until he was at the Navigator's side, chest heaving and his face set into grim lines. "Nami..."

"Yes? What do you want?" she asked, he had to have a plan if he was willing to throw himself into a situation like this, Usopp was a coward, there must be something he had up his sleeves!

"Save me," he pleaded.

"DAMN YOU!" the girl screamed, smacking him. "YOU'RE THE ONE WHO'S SUPPOSED TO BE SAVING ME!" she screamed, on the verge of tears, how could he leap out here without a plan? Why would he come to rescue her without even the slightest idea of how to do it and get them both killed in the process? She shook him violently.

"No, how can I possibly do that without any power?" He had a good point but she still wasn't happy.

"THEN WHY ARE YOU HERE?" she screamed.

"Ummm."

"WHAT KIND OF RESCUE IS THIS?"

Usopp grinned and pulled a 'oh you're so silly' face, "Well that question is better asked to our opponent, God."

Nami giggled in realisation, "That's true... Hahaha."

The two screeched in alarm as they narrowly dodged another lightning bolt.

Kai was frantic, those two were in no way capable of standing up to Enel! They were ordinary humans and they had no ability in Haki either! They were going to die unless he got free and did something. Wrenching his gloves off, the former Pirate began to tear at the wooden boards around his chain, frantically ripping up splinters and tearing chunks of skin off as he worked, listening with half an ear to the chaos the two were causing as they frantically tried to escape alive. The girl was going for the Waver, the jet-ski boat thing he saw her with earlier, the boy was trying to distract Enel away from her by reciting several horrible cringe worthy things, the fact that he already had splinters under his fingernails only made it even worse.

He heard the gunning of an engine as he managed to get through the wood.

"Your hand!" the girl screamed.

"Running away, is not an option I'm afraid." Enel! "**God's –** "

"Usopp!"

CRACK! He was free!

A blond roughly kicked the curly haired pirate into the girl's boat thing, he smirked, puffing on his cigarette as the two shot away, "Go," he told them calmly, facing into Enel's lightning without fear.

"SANJI-KUN!"

"Nami Go! Its this way right?"

" – **JUDGEMENT!**"

"_PROTEGO!_"

Sanji's cigarette dropped from his lips as a shadow flickered in front of him and orange light exploded, the world roaring around him as... something, blocked the lightning from hitting him and his mysterious rescuer. A thin, incandescent orange shield enveloped both him and a thin white and green clad figure, its arm outstretched, hand glowing with power, whole body trembling as it leaned into the blast before finally falling to its – his – hands and knees when it finally stopped. Too weak to keep on his feet.

Enel narrowed his eyes on the small figure, "So, you turn on me at long last."

"They are mine," the small figure rasped, glaring at him. "You have no right to pass Judgement on them. _They – are – mine!_"

Enel sneered and swept his staff at the small figure who suddenly wasn't there anymore. The larger man jerked, ignoring Sanji as he swept around in a circle, looking for the mysteriously gone figure. Who was suddenly behind him, armed with a shard of wood that looked like a stake, stabbing it deeply into his shoulder.

The Goro Goro no Mi user roared in pain and flung the smaller male away, he bounced roughly on the deck and curled, flipping, onto his feet and skidding to Sanji's side. Shaking imperceptibly as he got to his feet and lowered himself into a stance.

"You should escape now, while you have a chance," the person said, glancing at Sanji. The cook stared at him briefly before grinning ferally.

"Sorry, I can't let you be Nami-san's hero. That's my role and mine alone," he told the smaller figure, taking in the thin delicate quality of his hands and wrists, how his eyes seemed sunken in and how he had difficulty standing. He knew the effects of starvation when he saw it, having experienced it quite enough in his life. If they survived this, he was going to make sure this guy ate until he popped.

He couldn't see it, but Kai smiled at that, he wanted to tell him to stay out of the way but he didn't have a chance before Enel was there and swinging his staff at Kai's head. He ducked and the two lunged to the side, Enel effortlessly dodging everything the Blue Sea Dweller threw at him while trying to avoid everything Kai threw at him. Enel was good, but he relied a lot on Mantra, and he couldn't read Kai who was both fast and could hit him and nullify his power.

The fight was hard and fast, but Kai was fading fast, he was nowhere near in good shape and all it took from Enel was a solid smack to throw him like a rag doll to the side of the ship, where he rolled to a stop and was still. A bare second later, Sanji was treated to God's Judgement and fell. Just as the ship shuddered violently and stopped producing clouds.

Pushing himself up weakly, Kai watched as Enel flashed away to check the ship's interior. Smart Pirate had sabotaged the Arc while he was on his way up. He smirked in approval as he crawled over to the blond and began to heave him onto his shoulder, they were low enough to the ground that a fall wouldn't kill them – just cause severe injury, which was better than death in Kai's opinion.

"Oh! It's you!" It was the curly haired Pirate. "You alright? You don't look so good," he pointed out, quickly crawling over the edge of the ship and hurrying to Kai's side, helping him lift the blond.

The former Pirate smiled a little weakly, not that he could see, "I haven't been alright for a long time. Quickly now. Enel knows you're here. We have to get off the ship," he told the other male as he got to his feet.

Usopp nodded, getting up and pulling Sanji with him. He quickly untangled his grappling hook from the railings and climbed up onto the railings while the other male wrapped the chain around his throat around his arm and followed after him. The curly haired teenager peered over the edge worriedly, "Uhh..."

"The fall won't kill you," Kai assured him, making the teenager jerk in surprise and look at him. "Look, Island cloud will cushion our fall, we won't get hurt either. We need to jump, _now!_" he exclaimed, grabbing Usopp's ankle and throwing himself away from the Maxime. The two of them plummeting down to Upper Yard below.

The impact was harder than Kai had been anticipating and he had landed on his already injured back, all the air being forced from his lungs, leaving him gasping and choking on the cloud trying to breathe as the girl from earlier rushed over to help her crewmates.

He was dimly aware of the girl helping him to his feet and then lowering him to sit on the Waver, he quickly wrapped his arms around the severely injured blond as the curly haired male climbed aboard with him.

**

* * *

**

Stam Broker's Alucard:

Oh I'm so witty. XDD Bram Stoker's Dracula for those of you who didn't get the joke, Mihawk seemed the type to like Classical Literature and considering the Vampire theme he's got going on... XDDD I couldn't resist, I like giving Mihawk that hidden funny side that likes to mess with everyone. True he's jaded but, even he would take amusement in messing with people's heads.

**

* * *

**

Love to Stalker of Stories for betaing this despite her very busy social life XDDD


	3. Chapter 3

**REIGNITION**

**Chapter Three**

**Helpless Flight**

The worst thing about being so weak, was that when all was said and done, all he could do was watch as the people around him grew steadily more and more frantic with fear and hopelessness. It wasn't something he was used to, they were clearly baby-pirates, hadn't even obtained their first major Bounty yet, they weren't used to situations like this and now with a madman trying to bring down the whole island... the situation looked grim. Very grim.

Kai was shaking as he sat down beside the other injured, he recognised the tanned man with the facial tattoos, they had run into one another during one of Kai's escapes, the Blue Sea Dweller stumbling into him during one of his desperate flights from the Priests. He had tried to attack him at first but upon seeing him attack the Priests in return and then slice through Shura's Cloud String to free him, the two of them had formed a kind of unspoken alliance. The Blue Sea Dweller gently touched the man's face, he looked like he had been completely chewed out, poor bastard.

"Why do you sing?" the little girl, Aisa he heard her being called, asked as the Pirates spoke amongst themselves.

He shrugged a shoulder, "I don't know. I hurt my head and forgot a lot of things," he admitted before looking skyward, "He's staying up there... he gave up?" he muttered. Enel had given up on him? That seemed uncharacteristic, and as much as Kai hoped that it was the case, it was probably more likely that he was going to try and kill all the Blue Sea Dwellers like Luffy who was rapidly making his way up Giant Jack towards him and then flash down to collect him. He chewed his lip, he would die if he went with Enel, he would probably kill himself before the man reached him though in all honesty.

The air cracked with ominous energy, making his blood chill as he climbed awkwardly to his feet, staggering slightly as his misaligned bones screeched in protest, grinding against one another. Something was coming, something _big_!

Aisa screamed as the sky lit up, lightning forking down onto them, she threw her arms up, shielding her face as death approached them. The air roared and crackled, sizzling as the heat lashed her cheeks.

Russet eyes creaked open, what? Someone was singing!

She looked up, her breath freezing in her lungs as she stared up at the veiled man stood over her, arms stretched up to the sky and the thick canopy of ice that sizzled and hissed with steam, half melted with the heat of the lightning bolt that had struck it. The Singer inhaled slightly and twisted his upper body, swinging his arms around and flicking his wrists towards the tree line, the ice melting completely into water and flowing away, through the air, to the tree line where he directed it. He gave her a strained smile and patted her on the head.

"We should move closer to the bean-stalk or under the cloud line," he advised the others, "I can't do that again."

The black haired woman nodded, evidentially completely nonplussed over his strange ability to control water, turn it to ice, "We should fall back to the Going Merry as Miss Navigator suggested," she demurred before blinking and looking over Aisa's shoulder, the little girl stiffening slightly and turning.

"Waipa!" she exclaimed gleefully, he was alive! He ignored her, staring up at the black sky and the lightning bolts that lashed the air, setting the forest alight, "Waipa...?" she questioned softly, his Voice was in pain, it was confused and guilty and horrified and upset and so many other things that it was all tangled and jumbled and couldn't decide what to say. Just like the veiled man Sang, Waipa was now Spluttering.

They couldn't stay here! The Singer already admitted that he couldn't protect them like that again and she doubted the Blue Sea Dwellers, regardless of their weirdness, could do it either! She rushed forward, grabbing Waipa's hand and pulling at it, trying to move him, shouting but he... he couldn't hear her, he just stared, his Voice falling quiet, silent and sad. Heavy with regret and failure. Her throat closed and tears threatened to blind her again as she pulled and pulled, digging her feet in and pleading with him to move. All she succeeded in was lifting his arm, possibly damaging it.

"Waipa! If we don't leave we'll die! Waipa..." she whimpered, why couldn't he hear her? He scared her greatly but... he had always protected her, glower affixed on his face, but with gentle hands that gruffly dusted her off and set her back on her feet so she could run away, or carried her, scraped knees and bruised pride, back to the village, scolding her all the way, until her mother could chime in as well. Why couldn't he hear her?

"Enel," he snarled under his breath, eyes fixed upon the sky, "What gives you the right to take away everything?"

"He doesn't have one," Kai pointed out, making the little girl turn and look at him, "He never had one. But it hasn't stopped him before. And it won't stop him now."

"He's already reached a high altitude," the dark haired woman from the Blue Sea muttered, the strange deer thing in the pin hat cradled gently in her arms, "It's only a matter of time until the ship reaches the top of the bean-stalk."

"What is there that Enel wants?" the armoured old man asked, causing Kai to look over at him curiously, something about him felt... familiar, familiar but not quite right... He seemed a little plain and well kept, despite the trashed armour and slightly singed flesh, his beard just looked too short...

He shook his head. "He wants the Golden Bell hidden at the top," the woman explained, head still craned up towards the sky, observing the Goro Goro no Mi user's progress.

"A bell?" the man repeated in confusion.

"I'm surprised the Gold on his ship hasn't melted yet," Kai admitted softly, "The kind of energy he's feeding into it would have liquefied it by now. Gold is a very soft metal."

"Perhaps he has created a kind of chemical storage device for the extra energy, or he is controlling his electrical powers, I don't know," the dark haired woman admitted, glancing over to him in interest, not many people gave a thought to such things, just accepting them as is.

"The Golden Bell, you said something about it. What?" the mocha skinned Warrior barked, glaring at the Blue Sea Dwellers over Aisa's head, muscles bunching and coiling ready for an attack he wouldn't be able to pull off.

"Yes," the dark haired woman agreed.

"What _are_ you talking about?" the curly haired Pirate asked, bewildered as pieces of Island Cloud drifted out from his hair and clothing.

"Just before he hit you with his lightning, you were talking as if you knew what he was looking for," Waipa accused slowly, glaring at the woman, "Enel wants that, doesn't he? Where is it?" he demanded in a low growl.

"Oi! Wait a second! We don't have time to talk about this!" the curly haired Pirate squawked, throwing his arms out and shouting at them, "You saw that lightning, didn't you? If we don't get out of here, we're as good as dead!" he screeched dramatically, looking pleadingly over at the dark haired woman. Who completely ignored him and pointed towards the Beanstalk with an indecipherable expression on her face.

"At the top of the beanstalk," she told him.

"How?" Waipa demanded, "How do you know that?" he asked, ignoring the curly haired Pirate's squawk of protest.

"We promised Nami to meet her at the ship! She's going to grab Luffy and be right behind us!"

But the other two paid him no mind, or Aisa who agreed with him, "The ruins of Shandra are directly beneath us, this beanstalk pierces the earth at the very heart of the city – the heart of the city, was the location of the Great Belfry, where the Golden Bell hung. It was inscribed on a map that I found in the ruins," she explained, ignoring her crewmate who crawled over to the opening at the beanstalk to tell her that the city below was nothing but rubble and dust now. "To put it simply, I believe the force of the impact with the beanstalk, sent the bell hurtling farther up into the sky."

Kai hummed, looking around them, these ruins were at a slight angle, he looked up to the clouds above, if what the lady said was true, and judging by the angle of the ruins then... the bell would have been flung in _that_ direction... landing a bit of a distance away from the Beanstalk. There would have been no way to physically get from the top of the beanstalk to the Bell unless you were a freakishly strong jumper, had the power of flight, a Logia fruit or... could stretch... like Luffy.

He sat down, legs throbbing again as he saw Waipa spit up blood and fall to his hands and knees, the little girl, Aisa, fussing over him in a panic. His vision was beginning to blur, he felt light headed and his stomach was a gaping ravenous hole, he was sore, he was quite certain that he'd cracked his ribs falling off the Maxime and gained a concussion fighting Enel, he wouldn't have put it out of the realms of possibility that his legs were broken again, the pain was such a familiar friend that he couldn't tell when he was injured there anymore. Which was a really bad sign.

He had done more today than he had in the last two years, but he was running on empty.

He was probably going to pass out soon.

_**000**_

The sound of drums and the smell of wood and antiseptic greeted him when he woke up, laid out on a familiar feeling slab of cloud with the not so familiar firm itchiness of bandages wrapped up his legs, the hard press of what was unmistakably splints to keep them straight, bindings and the smell of some kind of herbal poultice that felt uncomfortably warm on his chest, another splint on his left arm and a sling around his neck to keep that arm tight against his chest. Someone had seen to his injuries, he was wearing a very loose robe in the same style as the locals the collar around his neck was still there but everything else was gone, even the veil hiding the impressive chin fuzz that he had cultivated in the past two years.

"Chopper-sensei, he's awake," a female voice called, her form polite as he turned towards her voice, she was blonde, with the same antenna style hair style as the other locals, white wings arching over her shoulders, blue eyes and a rather dusty looking pink dress with an abstract rose pattern trailing down from her neck to her thigh on the left side. "Its alright, you're safe now. Enel is gone," she assured him with a smile as the furry Deer thing from the Blue Sea Pirates trotted over, his chest likewise wrapped in bandages as he hopped up to Kai's side and began to check him over.

"Are you having any difficulties breathing?" he asked in concern.

Kai shook his head, "No, it just aches a little." He took a deep breath to test before wincing and slowly letting the air out, "It seems I can't inhale too deeply though. My ribs were cracked I gather?" he asked the deer, though given how his horns were kind of fuzzy and not the pointy stabbity goring ones he was familiar with, he was leaning towards this little guy being a Reindeer. Or a Moose. Or some kind of creature he had never encountered before – it _was_ the Grand Line, stranger things had happened.

"Yes, only the two. Your legs had been broken and fractured in so many places and never set that I had to rebreak them all and set them. You should try to avoid walking for the next two days, at least until the bones begin to knit together properly. Your arm was broken, its been set and splinted and you've got a concussion, thankfully there was no haemorrhaging otherwise you'd have died," the little Doctor explained, checking his bandages and broken limbs with deft hooves.

"I see, thank you Sensei. Is the girl with the orange hair and her friends alright?" he asked, he needed to talk to her, maybe she knew him, she looked so familiar that, maybe it was a fool's hope but he had given up so long ago about finding anything about his former life and suddenly a girl shows up that tugs so painfully and powerfully at memories he just _didn't_ have anymore. The hope that was gnawing at his stomach was almost painful.

"Nami? She's outside enjoying the party with everyone else." The antlered being smiled brightly, "Everyone's fine though, the Guerilla is over there, all he needs is rest," he explained, nodding to the heavily bandaged and still unconscious Warrior. Kai looked over and smiled slightly, using his free arm to push himself upright. "Sanji saved some food for you outside," the Doctor told him with a small smile, "I'll go and get Zoro to carry you out."

The thought of food quickly had Kai's mouth watering and any idea he had about requesting water and a knife so he could shave and deal with his matted hair was completely forgotten in favour of his stomach, which spoke up at that point for the first time in a long time with a plaintive demand for nourishment. He looked up as the flap for the make-shift medical bay was pushed open by a tall muscular man wrapped in bandages, Kai blinked slightly, staring up at him in bewildered amusement. His hair was green.

"Roronoa Zoro," the man introduced himself, nodding down at the crippled man.

"Namikaze Kai, nice to meet you," the long haired male greeted, flinching as the green eyed man knelt down and picked him up, arms carefully manoeuvring under his knees so as not to disturb the splints or breaks.

"Chopper, can you hold the curtains open?" Zoro called, shifting disturbingly light male in his arms as he stood up, ignoring the slight hiss of pain he gave when his broken arm was jostled a little. Chopper had been properly horrified when he got his hooves on the man, his legs were a mangled mess, they needed rebreaking and setting properly or he would be crippled for the rest of his life, the fact that he fought Enel regardless of his injuries was suicide, he must have been in incredible pain. The fact that he had done so on Nami, Usopp and the dumbass Cook's behalf was pretty much the only reason why Zoro was submitting himself to Chopper's request to ferry him out of the tent to where Sanji was protecting food from Luffy for him. But now, upon feeling his hands supporting the long haired male's bird-like weight, feeling his bony spine and ribs, his fingers sinking in through the fabric of his loaned out robe... how could anyone still be _alive_ after reaching this point?

"Marimo, over here!" And the fact he was still carrying the injured young man was also the only reason he had yet to try and kill the dumbass love Cook.

Twitching with anger, the green haired male made his way over, side stepping the revellers as he made his way to a quieter section of ruins where Sanji had set aside some food, it was surprisingly little but then again, the swordsman reasoned that if you had been starved for a long time your stomach would shrink, and no everyone could pack away as much as Luffy. The dumbass knew what he was doing when it came to food.

Carefully, he set the other man down on some of the stones.

"Thank you, Zoro-san," he said, prompting a grunt from the man who then proceeded to sit himself down on the ground and steal a mug of some kind of alcohol from a careless reveller who didn't even notice as he continued to stagger and dance through the area.

"You feeling better now?" the Cook asked, smiling at the long haired male, he looked very different without the veil and headdress hiding his face, it was easier to see the smile of gratitude on his face as he accepted the bowl of strew Sanji had made for him. A little and often was the best way to recover from a long period of starvation, he would be sleeping a lot as his body worked to store fat but after a time he would recover completely, a few weeks at most(1).

"Yes, much better now that Enel is gone," he admitted with a smile, using his good arm to eat the stew with obvious relish. "What about you? You were pretty charred when your friend and I jumped off the ship."

"Me? I'm fine, Chopper fixed me up real damn good. I'm Sanji by the way, you've met the Marimo - "Shut up, dumbass Love Cook!" the green haired male snapped over his mug, - the orange haired lady is Nami-san, the guy with the nose is Usopp, Chopper's our doctor, the little Tanuki guy in the tent earlier, Luffy's the one in the straw hat, he's the Captain and Robin-chan is the lady with the dark hair."

He nodded, "Namikaze Kai."

Sanji hummed, sucking on his cigarette, "The same Namikaze Kai with the 88,000,000 Belli Bounty?" he asked curiously.

The other male chuckled a little self consciously, "They still haven't invalidated that? I would have thought that Niisama told them I was dead," he admitted with a blush of embarrassment, ignoring the look of surprise on Zoro's face.

"You're a 88 million Bounty Head? How'd you end up here?" he asked in shock.

"Stupidity and ignorance in equal parts," he admitted with a chuckle, "My brother told me to leave well alone but I ignored him. Rode the Knock-up Stream in a tiny ass little boat, made it all the way to the top but I got shot clean into Upper Yard. The Priests found me five minutes after I landed, the rest is rather painful and gory so I won't get into it. That was two years ago."

"You've been here for two years?" Sanji asked, Kai nodded.

"Haven't seen much more than Upper Yard and the inside of the Palace Prison Cells in all honesty. I kept escaping so the Priests decided that breaking my legs would be a good way of keeping me in one place until I was physically incapable of escaping... Can we change the subject please?" he pleaded, shifting, he didn't like thinking about what the Priests had done to him. For Kai, it hadn't yet sunken in that he was never going to go back into that silent little room, that he would never be starved to the point where movement was impossible, where he would have to lie in his own filth because he couldn't summon the strength to even roll away from it.

"Want more to eat?" Sanji asked brightly as he looked down at the other male's empty bowl, Kai looked down, as if surprised that he had finished it before smiling and nodding, holding it out for seconds.

_**000**_

Kai slept like the dead for the rest of the evening, after the green haired male carried him back to the medical tent and the nice blonde girl wrapped him up in a comfortable blanket, he fell asleep dead away, feeling warm and a little bloated from the stew that Sanji had fed him only a few hours earlier. The sounds of all the people around him while annoying at first, eventually lulled him into a comfortable sleep, there was life here, he wasn't trapped in that tiny cold and silent room. He was free.

Tomorrow he would ask the Captain, Luffy, if he could join them on their voyage back down to the ocean and the nearest island.

It was the silence that woke him up.

It was different from the kind that was in his tiny room, he could hear the distant sound of birds and insects, he could smell earth and moss and things that grew, he was warm and wrapped up and he was free from pain for the first time in a long time. He took his time waking up, stretching languidly and enjoying the softer than usual surface he was on.

Shifting, he sat up and looked around, no one was there. Shrugging, he carefully tested his feet on the ground before getting up, his legs throbbed in protest but it was a muted pain, easily ignored as he carefully limped his way to the doorway and pushed aside the curtains keeping the light from streaming in and disturbing him. It was roughly midmorning and there wasn't a single soul anywhere that he could see.

Frowning, he closed his eyes and listened, dimly he could hear people speaking on the next street over. Using the wall for support, he limped to where he could hear them, smiling as he laid eyes upon the Pirates from earlier, were those bags of gold on their backs? He winced slightly, all he could offer in return for passage was the golden collar that was still around his neck – give him ten minutes and a lock pick and that would change – but if they already had that much gold, would they really be satisfied with such a trinket?

Swallowing his anxiousness, he approached them, "Hey, where is everyone?" he asked, limping over. Usopp squawked, flailing his arms while Chopper screeched and rushed over, scolding him about being up and about on his legs while Sanji quickly made his way over, ducking under his good arm and taking the majority of his rather insubstantial weight. "I'm fine, really Chopper-sensei," he tried to assure the smaller being only to jerk a little when he ballooned out into a massively furred... well... it looked like a gorilla.

"No you aren't!" he snapped, scooping him up like a child, clean out of Sanji's grasp and making Luffy laugh.

Kai rolled his eyes before looking at their Captain, suddenly feeling rather self conscious and nervous as the Doctor sat him down on some broken blocks, "Um, actually, I came to ask you something," he admitted quietly, causing everyone to look over at him.

"Nyah?" the teenager asked, tilting his head to the side.

"I was wondering if... if it would be alright if you took me with you when you returned to the Blue Sea," he admitted, "I can pay you, if the collar isn't enough then I can always work or my older brother can pay you. I just... in my current state I can't -

"Sure," Luffy chirped, grinning brightly, cutting him off mid-nervous blathering sentence.

Kai blinked owlishly at him before a broad smile broke across his face, "Really? Thank you! Thank you so much!"

"Don't mention it! You tried really hard to rescue Nami and Sanji," he pointed out, waving off his gratitude with ease.

"Look its Robin!" Usopp suddenly called, catching sight of her in the distance. Kai looked over as the other Strawhats began to get ready to make their break for it, he refrained from chuckling, somehow, he didn't think any of the people here would mind if they made off with all the Gold, heck, the only thing they would get bent out of shape over is the Bell and he doubted that the Strawhats would have a ship big enough to tow it along behind them. He didn't say that though, he got the feeling they enjoyed the idea of making off like real Pirates – despite the fact that the locals wouldn't care about the theft, or even notice it. Gold wasn't something the people here cared about, if they had even heard of it.

"Run for it!" Luffy yelled gleefully wheeling around and grabbing their newest passenger around the waist and bolting off towards the tree line, the rest of his crew following close behind as Kai wrapped his arm around the teenager's neck, tangling his fingers in the sack of gold, his legs trailing uselessly behind them as he laughed at the sheer absurdity of the situation, the Devil Fruit User's arm curled up under his thighs, effortlessly carrying his weight along with the much heavier bag of gold on his back.

"Okay guys! Run to the edge of the cloud!" the strawhatted teenager yelled, grinning wide enough to split his face.

_**000**_

He liked the Going Merry.

Kai grinned as he ran his fingers along the white railings of the ship, the Merry had character, it was battered and damaged but despite the shoddy repairs it was clearly well loved and adored by the rest of the crew, it felt almost like the ship was alive. He watched as the rest of the crew unloaded the gold into the kitchen before moving around the ship, unfurling the sails, pulling up the anchor, sorting everything out while he sat as far out of the way as he could with a lock pick the orange haired girl, Nami, lent him for the purpose of removing the golden collar.

Flicking it into the kitchen where the other piles of gold were, he pocketed the pick to give back to her later and smiled, enjoying the breeze on his face as the ship began to move out. He couldn't wait to go back to the salty, mercurial blue sea, the Grand Line with its freakish sites, its upside down-inside out logic and the endless possibility of adventure it offered. Even if he never found out who he was, he liked who he had become, he'd had a long time to think about it in Enel's Dungeon, even if he never found out he was happy. He had a brother, he had his health (well he would eventually), he had his friends in various islands everywhere and in various Pirate crews, and he had the Grand Line. That was all he really needed to be happy.

He laughed as he heard the obnoxious trumpeting of the blonde girl's Ship as she and her father led them towards Cloud End which was coming up fast, his heart sped up as he saw the endless blue horizon stretching out in front of them, no endless carpet of pure white cloud. His stomach fizzed and bubbled anxiously, he could feel a lump lodging its way into the back of his throat as they passed under the arch way, the Strawhats shouting their goodbyes to the girl and her father as the two hopped out of their boat and ran along the pier, keeping pace with the ship and shouting instructions to furl the sails.

"LET'S GO BACK TO THE BLUE SEA!" Luffy roared, cheering as the ship finally passed out from under the arch.

"Everyone, be careful of the free fall!" the blonde girl called helpfully, making Kai pause. Free fall?

The world dropped out from under them and everyone started screaming, he couldn't really blame them, he too was clinging to the railings, his mouth welded shut along with his eyes. But he certainly felt it when the ship jerked and the free fall stopped. Hesitantly, a little scared of what he would see, a green eye cracked open, glancing around before he looked up, staring at the large inflated Octopus above them, wrapped around the ship. That was one way of getting them down safely.

He looked up at the ginger haired girl on his left, "Um, Nami-san?" he asked, drawing her attention, "Would it be alright if I cleaned up a bit in the bathroom? Its been a while since I had a proper wash and brush-up," he admitted self consciously.

She blinked down at him before her eyes widened and she nodded, "Sure, its just down there and straight through. You'll have to wipe away all the water when you're done, we don't want to damage Merry. There should be enough water stored up for a fairly long shower but not for a bath," she told him seriously.

"Got it, how do I turn the hot water on?" he asked, all ships were different and caravel class ships did tend to have boilers for water purification and for baths.

"Ah, there's a plunger just to the side of the bath tub, the one with the red toggle on it."

"Alright, thank you."

He couldn't wait to get rid of this god-damn beard. It was itching something fierce.

_**000**_

**(1) Broken legs in two weeks, starvation in a few weeks:** Yeah, ever noticed how in One Piece they recover at _stupidly_ short periods of time? That's what I'm basing this on. It would take a LOT longer to recover in real life, I know this, I acknowledge it, but Oda doesn't and neither does One Piece unless its plot-orientated. Deal with it. XDDD

**And thus, Chapter 3 of Reignition is FINALLY posted. I have so many apologies for everyone about taking so long but the only excuses I can offer up is both Real Life kicking me in the Teeth and just a general lack of inspiration. This chapter would. Not. **_**Come**_**! If you know what I mean. It fought me all the way until this morning, at which point it was suddenly "Ah, I can do this!" sat down at roughly... 14:00 and it is now 00:15 as I write this. XDDD Once I got going, I was gone. Aside from the incident when I forgot what day it was and went out for my usual Game Night with the guys only to remember Liam is moving out so its not on – after I reached his house. XDDD;; Oops.**


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